The Italian press on ...

Italy's newspapers paid unanimous tribute to the late Pope John Paul II as a religious leader whose pontificate helped to change the world. "In this hour, glorious for you and sorrowful for us, we feel abandoned," said a special memorial edition of the Vatican newspaper
L'Osservatore Romano. "But take us by the hand and guide us with that hand of yours, which in these last few months has also become your word. Thank you, Holy Father."

The Milan daily Corriere della Sera headlined its front-page report of his death "The Pope who changed the world", hailing him as one of the most important figures of the 20th century in the fields of religion, politics, culture and morality. Paolo Mieli, the paper's editor, highlighted Karol Wojtyla's battle against Nazism and communism in his native Poland, and his reaffirmation of the founding principles of the Roman Catholic church. "The church of the Polish Pope made a fundamental contribution to the process that reduced the Soviet empire to fragments, but at the same time it in no way placed itself in the service or in the tow of the victors of the cold war, the US," he wrote.

The Turin daily La Stampa chose almost the same headline, "The man who changed the world", for its front page. "He was inflexible in matters of faith and dogma, as eastern Europeans often are, and the malleability and political and diplomatic cunning of the Italian bishops were foreign to him," the paper said. Experience of the horrors of the second world war had led him to "pose deeply personal questions" on the reasons for the existence of evil and the duty to resist it.

John Paul II was not against all wars - he was on the side of the Muslims under threat in Bosnia - La Stampa said, but he rejected conflict with religious overtones. "If the recent war in Iraq cannot be seen as a Christian crusade, it is thanks to his determination in denying it the support of the Holy See," said the paper.

The founder of the Rome daily La Repubblica, Eugenio Scalfari, saluted the Pope's courage in his final days. "Wojtyla has clothed the church in the mantle of his personal charisma," he said. "Now, following his death, the church is naked."